Shooting investigation stalls in India

CPJ has been monitoring the investigation into the shooting
attack on Arunachal Times journalist
Tongam Rina outside her office in Itanagar, capital of Arunachal Pradesh state,
which left her hospitalized in critical condition this July.
Her recovery is progressing, slowly but surely. The police inquiry, however, is
not.

"The state police have failed to make any headway," Rina
told CPJ by email. Though she believes the incident was related to her work as
an investigative political reporter, the exact cause is unclear. "I have been
extensively covering corruption, women, and political and environmental issues,
so I am finding it hard to pinpoint any particular issue which might have
triggered the attack," she said.

The same was true in April, when a group of unidentified men
broke into the Arunachal Times premises
and destroyed equipment. "The police are pointing at the same people who
attacked the office [in the shooting investigation]," Rina said. Yet no suspects
have been arrested in either case. The state's director-general
of police, Kanwaljit Deol, declined to comment on details of the investigation when CPJ reached her by telephone today.

Threats, and subsequent police inaction, are all too
familiar in the northeastern state on India's border with China. "A couple of
years back, I received a threatening note while I was doing stories on
food security in my state," Rina told CPJ. "It was reported to the police but
they could not figure out anything. No arrests were made."

Arunachal Times journalists
have no choice but to continue despite the obstacles. "Verbal threats are
almost routine in our office," Rina said. Overcoming a violent, targeted
assault is much harder. In her "Ringside View"
column for the newspaper--the only one published since the shooting--she
reflects on that challenge. "Many have asked me where do I go from here and
when do I come back? I really don't know. Writing is too much of a passion--you
don't just let go of it."

Rina and her colleagues are fighting hard to do their jobs.
Now it's time for the police to do theirs.

UPDATE: This post has been corrected to reflect that the state director-general of police is female.

Madeline Earp is senior researcher for CPJ’s Asia Program. She has studied Mandarin in China and Taiwan, and graduated with a master’s in East Asian studies from Harvard. Follow her on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.

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